Clifton is where Karachi exhales. The upscale neighbourhood south of the city centre, running down to the Arabian Sea coast, is where the city's restaurants, cafes, and more relaxed street life concentrate. The contrast with Saddar, twenty minutes away by traffic, is stark: here the streets are cleaner, the buildings newer, the security guards outside commercial properties more numerous, and the general atmosphere considerably less frantic. It is not exactly a tourist quarter — Karachi does not really have those — but it is where most visitors end up spending their evenings.
Mohatta Palace Museum sits at Clifton's cultural centre, providing a fixed point around which everything else orbits. The beach is a short walk or a quick rickshaw ride; the Do Darya restaurant strip runs along the coast road to the south; the Boat Basin food street fills the late-night gap between dinner and sleep. The neighbourhood is also where most of the city's small number of boutique guesthouses are located, making it a practical base as well as a pleasant one. By Karachi standards, Clifton is calm. By most other standards it is still very much a major city neighbourhood, and the usual urban sense is required.